Eskom’s scheduled blackouts began in 2007. However, 16 years later, the situation has worsened and load shedding is expected to continue until 2027.
With no end in sight, many businesses and residents have turned to battery-powered light fixtures, gas stoves, inverters, and home solar power. Load shedding has reduced working hours and production, reducing revenue.
Companies have also had to spend large sums to find alternative energy sources.
Photo: GroundUp
Hairdresser Faadia Samuels has had to start a side business selling second-hand clothes to make ends meet.
Faadia Samuels opened her salon, Hair Therapy, 15 years ago. She has been in her current location at the Observatory for about six years. The covid pandemic hit her hard, and now the load shedding is putting a strain on her finances just as she was on the mend.
You can still wash and scissor for some customers, but you can’t blow dry or use a cutting machine during load shedding.
“Customers are frustrated,” says Samuels.
Charging times keep chopping and changing at short notice, defeating the purpose of scheduled blackouts meant to help people plan.
Samuel says it’s “mentally stressful.”
Now she sells second-hand clothes through WhatsApp groups to make up for the loss of income at the salon.
Photo: GroundUp
Linda Claassen (left) and Nazeema Bieding own “SewAndShades”
Linda Claassen and Nazeema Bieding are the owners of SewAndShades, a small tailoring business in Observatory that makes and modifies clothing and lampshades.
“Whatever you bring, I can do it,” says Bieding.
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But their sewing machines don’t work when there’s no electricity. If load shedding is scheduled for 8 am, they start work at 6 am to make up time. When there is a cargo shedding from noon to 2:30 pm, please close the store early.
Bieding said that sometimes people need things urgently and she loses these customers.
“We’re wasting a lot of time,” she says.
Bieding’s business partner, Claassen, says: “I can’t tell you how I feel because it’s stressful and it’s crippling our business… What else can we do?… We can’t fight the government… We just have to keep going.” try to fix it.”
Photo: GroundUp
A sign on the metal door of Tapi Tapi tells customers that the business is closed during load shedding.
Tapiwa Guzha runs Tapi Tapi, an African-inspired boutique ice cream parlor in Observatory. He says four-hour charging sheds are crippling, especially if it’s from 2 to 6 p.m. “That’s our rush hour, so we’ve lost a day,” she says.
Guzha says his freezers can keep things cold for eight hours, so his ice cream is fine, but “it’s not good to be freezing and thawing and freezing and thawing.”
The ice cream shop also has a small kitchen and bar in the back, but they had to discontinue food service.
“Stocks were just skyrocketing,” he said.
Instead, they are now focusing on the deli and creating jams and flour mixes to take home.
“We’re figuring it out as we go along,” he says.
Photo: GroundUp
Zoë Van Zijl, owner of Zodiac Tats tattoo parlor, used portable headlamps and ring lights to work during load shedding.
Zoë Van Zijl, owner and lead artist at Zodiac Tats, a tattoo parlor in Salt River, says they used headlamps, ring lights and “every kind of rechargeable LED” they could find to create light to work during load shedding.
They had to invest in an inverter in December in order to move forward.
Photo: GroundUp
The Create.Hobby sewing school was unable to function during load shedding.
Gailene Lott-Cassels, a professor at Create.Hobby, a sewing and pattern-making school at Observatory, says the unpredictability of the shedding had hit her students hard. Classes had to be rescheduled, sometimes moved to different days. Some students can only come to a class at a specific time and would miss the class if there was a load limit. As a result, it lost students and potential new applicants.
The company has now installed an inverter that helps run the essential sewing machines and lights.
Photo: GroundUp
Warren Rasmussen says the loadslide has prevented his bakery from growing.
Warren Rasmussen, owner of The Local Baker, a small bakery that makes cakes and breads in Observatory, says, “Bread is a 24-hour process.”
Baking requires things to be done precisely and is interrupted by load shedding. Slowing the rise of the dough by placing it in the refrigerator for too long can affect the quality. Breads also get “overcooked” because the oven needs about 45 minutes to heat up.
“When these things are ready to be baked, they need to be baked,” he says.
He says his production has declined as a result and “we are delivering less.”
You are considering buying a generator, but one to power your business would cost R100,000.
